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A good read on what life was like in a mining town is "The Story of an Ordinary Woman" by Ann Ellis. She lived in Bonanza, south of Leadville. In the early 1980s there were just two families living there.

John Fielder is a Colorado photographer who has published several books where he has set up shots, carefully standing where another photographer did over 100 years earlier. The pages place the images side by side for the reader to compare the changes or marvel that a mountain view is still the same.

Eureka -- San Juan county, is a small mining camp, situated in the extreme northern part of Baker's park, on the Rio de las Animas. The town consists of one store, hotel, a dozen buildings, one smelting works and a population of nearly 200. The ores of this region are in general argentiferous galena, of high grade, grey copper accompanying. Some of the best property at this place is locked up by litigation, which is a certain guarantee that it is rich in minerals. It is five miles south from Animas Forks and nine miles north of Silverton; stages daily; fare, $1. -- See Post Roads, No 121. Tour Seven.

Post Roads. 121. From SILVERTON, northeast 5 miles to Howardsville; 4 miles to EUREKA; 5 miles to ANIMAS FORKS; and 3½ miles to MINERAL POINT; total, 17½ miles. Hack.

The first structure, other than tents, was probably the stable on the left. Rough hewn logs chinked with flat rocks and probably some pine pitch and bark. It was added to on its left an office and home for the owner. The newer structure on the stable's right looks like a recent expansion to the stable capacity, but it doesn't have the pole for lifting the hay into the loft yet. Might be brand new.

The closest structure on the right looks like it was the second one to go up, with its wide vertical boards (someone had a sawmill to cut trees into boards somewhere near) and narrow boards to cover the gaps. It may have been a warehouse for tools and equipment for mining, to sell or to store. Most subsequent structures have horizontal boards for better watershed and ease of construction

It's interesting to see the gradual refinement of materials and construction as the town went together over a period of years. My guess is it came together over about 30 years, maybe less.

Be interested in what the children are finding so fascinating with the drainage hose coming out of the restaurant door. Drinking? Washing? Or just kids doing what kids do?

The Saloon and the Restaurant are flying the flag. Maybe it's the Fourth of July!

Whenever I see the still-surviving "ghost town" villages, I tend to always think that it's very neat, but there was certainly more going on in the village that wasn't preserved. But according to this, nope -- that might just be pretty much it!

Love this photo. I wonder what the special is at the Minershome Restaraunt tonight? I think I'll ask the post leaner.

Also thanks to John Howard for that shot of the mountains today. Identical angle and everything!

Have jeeped this area many times over the years. The elevation of the plain is around 10,000 feet. Engineer Pass is around 12,000. Too high for any agriculture or ranching aside from maybe sheep herding in the summer. Winters for the miners who stayed were brutal. Beautiful in the summer, though.

I have a passion for diving into Shorpy's photos by help of Google Earth. It is an inexpensive way of traveling around North America (where I've never really been to). This photo was pretty easy: I just searched Eureka Colorado and there I stood almost precisely on the spot where William Henry Jackson once stood!

I saw the same view, but all the houses were gone, completely disappeared. Why, where? My bet is the river. Waters flushed them gradually away. Any other bets?

[Most of the smaller Colorado mining towns were gone by mid-century for economic reasons. During World War 2, rail access to Eureka and other settlements in the Animas Valley disappeared when the tracks were taken up for scrap, another nail the coffin. - Dave]

Where do you start with proclaiming this image to be otherworldly? I just can't get over the tonal range of Jackson's negatives. He pulled off this same sort of light to dark ratio in a series that Shorpy published from Mexican railroads. And then in the swamps of Florida. I just don't get it and believe me folks, this isn't about Photoshop.

[It is, to a certain extent. All of these images are adjusted using the Shadows & Highlights filter in CS4. It's what brings out detail in overexposed areas (clouds) as well as in the shadows. Below: unadjusted. - Dave]

At first I was thrown by the lack of horses on the wagons, being conditioned to your photos of NYC etc. with dozens of horses hitched up. Then I realized that you don't need a horse to get across town, as those gents in the foreground are demonstrating.

And those hills are just waiting for some ski lifts full of rich tourists.

Will you look at the slope behind the town on the right. That's just screaming avalanche territory. Just behind the tents in the right background, there's a possible sign of an old avalanche washing up across the valley and into the trees on the other side. Still, if it's around today, it managed to survive and most of these mountain mining camps seemed to burn down more often than being buried.

With this picture we can appreciate how faithful the Hollywood set designers were in portraying pioneer towns in those iconic shoot 'em ups directed by John Ford and others. This looks like the movie set in Old Tucson where they shot many westerns.

My life would be complete if I could have this blown up huge, along with the Longacre Square 1904 post from today, and hang them facing each other in the same room. It's "Reservoir Dogs" meets "Bull Durham." Couldn't be more perfect.

On New Year's Eve I was just over the hill from Eureka in Silverton, where the "wild west" mentality hasn't been gentrified out of the townsfolk....yet. At the stroke of midnight a small rowdy crowd tumbled out of a saloon and someone hollered "yeeee-haaaa" and fired a pistol in the air to ring in 2010.

Hoping these places don't change too much ...

[Silverton is one of my favorite Western towns, along with its bigger neighbor Ouray. A jeep trail called the Alpine Loop connects them, with ghost towns (including Eureka) and ore mills along the way. - Dave]

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo archive featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1960s. (Available as fine-art prints from the Shorpy Archive.) The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.